Cassiel Winters 1: Sky's End (35 page)

How he passionately kissed me at the same time scooping me up and lying me down on the cot. I especially liked that.

I imagine him now, as he was, above me. Looking down. I could see his own vulnerability, maybe for the first time, as his experienced fingertips explored my curves blind because all the while he watched my face expectantly.

How he whispered, surprised, “Your skin is so soft.”

How he kissed me starting at my forehead. His mouth on me. All over me. Well, he never got past one certain area.

How I wriggled for him to tease me, then to stop teasing me.

How he laid one hand on my inner thigh near my knee, pressing ever so slightly until I relaxed them open.

I flush even now with false modesty. I was such a wanton woman for him.

How when I could finally get over the incredible act of intimacy itself, I came, in minutes, riding a wave of pleasure so strong it almost hurt. His fingers in my mouth.

How after, he rose up, and I expected, no, prepared for pain. A lot of pain . . . But he just hovered there. A look of tenderness replacing lust. Then he rested on his side, his mouth sucking at mine. He took my hand and closed it around him. He kept his hand there, showing me how he liked to be touched.

How he came before my quivering, uncertain, shy kisses reached his belly button . . . and when he did, he grabbed my hair drawing my head back and up so he could look at my face the whole time. In that moment, I wanted him inside me, or for the universes to end.

But when it was over, he gathered me all the way up to his face and kissed me hard. I didn’t ask why he didn’t make love to me. I didn’t have to. He could see the disappointment on my face.

He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, we will get to that.”

But I’m impatient. Always have been. I want it now. I’m hungry frantic for him, all of him. I will wake him up with my mouth. Butterflies flutter in my stomach at the thought.
Yes, do it!
Then I hear a light tapping on the door of the hut.

King jerks awake. He shoots up and over me, reaching for his gun on the floor next to the cot.

Resentment swells.

“Who is it?” He’s fully awake, though his puffy eyes say otherwise.

“Sergeant Gladwell. Sir, we’re under attack.”

“Enter.” King’s already standing, hastily, unabashedly, getting dressed.

What? Attack!
I don’t hear any noises.

Gladwell, a bright-eyed man in his 30’s, walks right in, ignoring me, assessing the situation without expression, collecting and handing clothes to King, answering his questions as quickly as they are fired.

I’m still somewhere on the vast barren plane of denial.

King shouts at me to get dressed. “Now!”

I stare at this Gladwell thinking I’m not letting him see me naked. King grabs Gladwell and spins him so his back is to me.

What I’m hearing him say finally sinks in. Thell’eons are attacking our camp! I grab my clothes and dress hurried under the covers. ESE thinks they are coming for the sift,
ah, me!
Where are my boots?
I look around, panicked.

King’s worried they know ESE’s pulling out, which would mean there’s another spy.
Oh no!
I strap on my Bowie knife, hands shaking, and then fumble with my gun holster. King’s giving orders through the com-tab on his wrist for my guard to break up. He thinks Thell’eons will look for me where there’s a large contingent of guards. I tuck my UPS in my pocket because I can’t put it over the
Linor
cuffs.

When King turns to me and tells me that a SOSA guard, which I watch, mouth hanging open, file into my hut, is taking me to set coordinates
without him,
my heart nearly stops. I protest, thinking I’ll let the sun go supernova before I leave his side again, but King ignores me.

“Listen!” he shouts, shaking me. I try. He says that he has hidden the Thell’eon ship he shot me down in at the extraction point, and that I need to get there so I have a standing chance of getting back to ESE when Thell’eons give chase in space.

So that sort of explains why he wanted me to go to his ship out when I was lost out in the brambles.

That’s when I hear the fighting, I mean really hear it. Funny, there’s only the odd blast of gunfire.

Thell’eons must have crept in silently,
those fuckers! Wait . . . are those Kudas?
The whipping noise they make in the air is ferocious. Some of them are 50 feet long. Acrid burnt air confirms Gladwell’s report: they’re torching the place.

Fear petrifies my limbs. Touch me and I might crumble.
Will I ever be safe?

Stop being so selfish! Think about the other sift. Hiding out in a rift. Who will help him?

King passes me a Hathaway Shield.
Hey, that’s right
, says my chicken heart. “Why are we retreating when we have these?”

“There are not enough for everyone.”

Oh. Metatabulous
. ESE soldiers will die, fighting to save me. Recognition of this horror alters the entire backdrop to my life, from pale and sickly yellow to a bright flashing white, but
don’t focus on that
. . .
KING IS LEAVING!

“I will meet you there. Be safe,” he says, squeezing my hand, lightly shoving me toward the five tough-looking SOSA ops.

Wait! Is that it? No!
I struggle against the ops but King has already vanished from the hut.

One of them shouts, “Hey,” in my ear. He pulls back a fist, like he’s going to punch me. He tells me that if I don’t cooperate we won’t survive.

I cooperate. I let them take the lead, stunned.

They push me through a back entrance I didn’t know was in my hut, and zigzag with me across the encampment protecting my body with theirs. All of us are wearing Hathaway Shields. I notice how we’re able to touch one another, as though the shields merge when necessary.

I wish the shield could shut out sound. I hear planet-shaking bombs, the fierce sizzle of gamma incineration, and the instant cringe-evoking sound of a strip of blades whipping through the air.

I don’t want to be the reason for this.

A man screams in agony, the worst sound in all of the worlds, and a burst of rage ignites within me, so visceral it touches my very soul.

Is this what the desire to murder feels like?

Then it hits me.

You know what you have to do.

We crouch down behind a row of surplus huts while my unit checks the UPS.

I’m shockingly calm. Collected.

The scan shows Thell’eons everywhere.

Perfect.

Quickly, I set my gun to unison target, then I lean into their shields, rendering them useless inside by joining them together, stunning all five of my guards at once without hesitation. One slumps out from cover, his features frozen in shock, and I heave him in with the others. I reactivate their shields. At least they will live to see another day.

Before I second-guess myself, because I know I will, given half the chance, I don’t bother reactivating my own shield, throw away my gun and knife, and run forward into the brambles yelling like a madwoman, “Don’t shoot! Sifter! Sifter! Sifter!”

I hear shots but they’re over me and under me.
Whumph!
I’m tackled to the ground by a giant Thell’eon. A hand grabs my head, yanking my hair, and I resist the urge to fight back. I try to lean into his hand so he’ll spot my branding. Oh, thank the stars I don’t recognize him from Or’ic’s Horde!

“Sifter! I’m a sifter!”

This one, with a rectangular face and dark menacing eyes with gray rings around the irises that seem to glow, is absolutely covered with brandings.

I hope he’s a Kir One. Or even a Prime.

He takes me in, my branding, my cuffs. With a smile, he informs his Horde through his earpiece that he has the sift.

They better stop killing humans now!

“Take me to the rift!” I say. “My Horde, Prime Or’ic’s Horde, is on its way. These are his orders.”

He doesn’t know what to make of this.

“Please, there’s no time. I’m still Prime Or’ic’s sift. ESE captured me. But I escaped. The rift’s closing soon!” I lie.
I’m good at this.
“I must get there to find the other sift before it closes!”

When he doesn’t move, still holding me in his arms, I panic. “Don’t you want the other sift? Prime Or’ic, I mean, I will give him to you. Please! I’ll make sure of it!”

He’s silent, and soon I recognize a sense of suspicion creeping into my mind. One of his Kirs is using the surge to see if I tell the truth. I dig deep, channeling the hope I sincerely feel for finding the other sift.

“Good enough?” I shout gruffly, pushing him away. I look back and expect to see someone like Shadon, but there’s only a worn Thell’eon with a nose that has been broken so many times it forms a lightning bolt on his face.

‘Thor’ and his Prime share a silent exchange, and before I know it, I’m on my feet, running with them. We crash through the brambles without a second thought to the sharp tips. I quickly fall behind.

Almost immediately, the biggest Kir falls back, disgusted, to let me catch up. When he swings out an arm, I duck, expecting him to punish me for being so slow, but instead, he grabs me and swings me up and on his back like a bag of hut parts.

Fine by me!

After a few short minutes of high-pace dashing through brambles, a sense of familiarity overcomes me, and I know we’re nearing the rift because I’ve been here before. And I anticipate the next thought I’ll have as it comes. “Why is there no gun fire?”

We stop. I look out, raised up over the bramble’s edge on my Thell’eon’s back to see the rift. Bless those egotistical handsome Hordes! Not expecting any competition for it, they have clearly outlined it with beacons.
Fools! They won’t make that mistake again, now that ESE has joined the fight.

It measures at least 10-by-10 feet. Through it, the other dimension looks just like this side, only there are more explosions, and, therefore, I must assume, more fighting.

Back in my universe, ESE appears to have abandoned its perimeter as they were engaged in the Thell’eon attack on the camp.
No, wait
,
shoot
, they’re regrouping on the west edge, nearest to the rift. By now, they must have figured out I was taken, Thell’eons would have retreated, and that I’ve been brought to the rift. I’ve had this thought before, of course. This awareness of everything that occurs, that will occur, that I think and feel, is delayed by less than a second.

This short-term omnipotence doesn’t prevent me from panicking when Thell’eons stream out in front, pushing me back and to the right flank.

“Hey!” They move forward and I realize, twice over, they have organized a physical shield with their bodies, willing to risk their lives to get me into the rift.

“No! Stop!” I shout, activating my shield. They hesitate, or maybe it’s because I’m pushing through, burning them in order to save them, and they drop back wisely.

I stride on out right into the clearing, on the east edge nearest the rift, directly across from ESE. Command fires on me, not realizing who I am in those first seconds, as I knew they would. I brace myself, knowing that I’ve feared that the shield won’t up against the incredible firepower.

My heart beats hard but the shield holds, and the minute I know it, ESE stops firing.

I don’t waste time. I run for the rift. The second I start, I know I’ve done this before. I’ve already thought,
Wow, 50 yards is far away.
Wait
, I know what will happen next but it’s already happening.

Six, no, seven SOSA ops, protected from Thell’eon fire by Hathaway Shields, have broken from the perimeter and are running straight toward me from the other side.

They intend to try to catch me before I get inside rift.

Fret screams inside my head, RUN FASTER.

As they near and my legs burn with the effort, I can’t help but notice how very fit these men are, with their long, powerful legs.
What, did they send their Gold Medal Intergalactic Track and Field runners?
I’ve had this thought before.

I’m clearly not as fast a runner as I believed. Even with my head start, it’s going to be close.

Ten yards.

My lungs are burning so bad.

Five yards.

The lapse between my recognition of each moment by moment shrinks with each step I take until the two realities threaten to merge into one, the new one. I shudder.

The Ops are so close I can see their features clearly. They wear a certain fierce, human mask of determination and sense of absolute possibility.

I know it the minute I know it—
why it’s almost as though I can read their minds
—the two nearest the front are going to jump for me just steps outside the rift.